Oct 7

Creative destruction

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This is going to be a somewhat random post, but that’s how it goes sometimes.

I was listening to Car Talk today in the pickup, and they were talking about some of the results of a contest they held in regards to the worst road trip ever.  This was mostly about the car breaking down a lot or whatnot, and there are some impressive stories.  I’d enter the contest, but these are moldy podcasts from May, so… kind of out of the loop.  Instead, I thought I would share some fun stuff here with you guys.

Before the Jeeps, I had the Mustang, and when I got the Mustang, it did not run and it had a hole in the gas tank.  I spent a lot of time working on the car, but one nagging problem I had was that sometimes, it would just die, and I would have to pop the hood, take off the top of the carb, and top off the fuel bowl to get it going again.  This hexed me for a couple of weeks, until I discovered a piece of bad fuel line hiding near the firewall.  All that fuel, getting pumped out onto the exhaust… yeah.

I had the Mustang running pretty good when I got the first Jeep, the ‘Dangermobile’, a 1964 Wagoneer.  Of course, the Dangermobile did not run.  I towed it home from the junkyard with the Mustang.  Then I talked a friend into towing it from Hobbs to Socorro, which was a fun little experience.  I finally got it running, and run it did… for some values of run.  It had very little power, and would smoke screen a parking lot if you sat for any length of time.  There were hills I could not go up even in low range.  It was sad.  After driving around for a while, I put new spark plugs in, which turned out to be what was wrong power-wise… oh man, it ran good after that.  Nevermind the seats were barely bolted down with wood screws and there was a full turn of slop in the steering.  Danny coined the name one day, after a short drive down the main drag of Socorro behind the wheel, he handed control back and proclaimed, ‘You should name this thing the Dangermobile, as I have never before driven a vehicle where I was in fear for my life’.

The stock engine obviously needed replacement, so I pulled it out and replaced it with a Ford 302 from Chris’ Thunderbird.  The transmission input bearing was simply gone, and it would not stay in second if you were not on the gas, so I rebuilt the transmission.  After the engine went in, I found the oil pressure was too low, and ended up putting all new bearings in the bottom end in the driveway one day.  The belt pulleys were not cocentric and I was throwing a belt every 100 miles or so, like at the top of mountain passes getting to Socorro.  I always carried a lot of spares…  I even had a heat core pop one day at the top of a mountain pass, that was fun.  Thankfully I had tools and spare water.  I replaced the v-belt pulleys with serpentine units, but I did not get the pulley on the alternator tight enough, and lost it in San Antonio, NM waiting for a train one day.  Poor Jo had to come get me to take me to Socorro to get another alternator so I could limp up to Socorro.  The shifter for the transfer case was missing since the stock one didn’t work with the 302, so I had to crawl under the truck to bang it into low range.  I got myself pretty stuck on a power line road near Socorro one day all by myself… luckily I was able to hammer it into low range and get home.  I finally stole the use of the mini-Baja team’s MIG welder and made up a shifter.  Outside of all of this, the truck has tended toward being whole.. the seats are now bolted down, the brakes are dual system, and the steering only has 1/4 turn of play in it now.

Somewhere along the way, I bought another Jeep, a 1980 Cherokee Chief, for the express purpose of a frame swap for the ’64, but it was too easy to get the Chief running, so I ended up motoring around in it instead.  Well… sort of.  The transmission was shot when I got it, due to the previous owner trying to ford a stream and getting stuck…  I did a swap in Jo’s driveway, posted pictures, and dismayed her from almost 1000 miles away while she was on vacation.  I put a good number of miles on the truck before I found some fun issues… I had just got cruise control working, and was cruising right into Socorro from Los Alamos one day, kicked off the cruise control, and snapped a U-joint on the front drive line at the transfer case.  It took out the transmission cooler lines and the rear wiring harness.  Ouch.  A month later I had it running good again.  Took it down to Hobbs with Chris for Thanksgiving.  On the way home, I lost the driver’s side tire attached to the axle shaft while driving through Roswell.  Standing behind the truck, looking at the tire sitting face down with the axle sticking 4 foot in the air, the truck at a horrid angle, in the center median, Chris and I had a good chuckle.  The cops showed up, carefully eyed the axle, the truck, and looked right at me, hands on his belt, and said, deadpan: “Car trouble?”  What a truck.  Full time 4 wheel drive is awesome on the snow and ice.  I took the truck apart to rebuild it and, as the story always goes, needed to move and sold it off for a few hundred bucks.  It was well worth it.

Besides Amanda’s Subaru, I just don’t have vehicle issues these days.  I don’t know if it is better or worse that way.  It’s nice to have something I can count on, but sometimes… I miss the requirement of a bin of commonly failed parts, and a full tool chest, along with survival gear all packed in the back of the truck…

I’ve bailed a few of you guys out with the ‘ol Dangermobile, which I enjoyed a lot. 

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Now for a change of pace, I’ve been cooking stuff from scratch here lately, mostly to mess with Amanda’s stereotype of me only being capable of cooking ‘box kits’.  It would probably be more rewarding if she was actually hungry when she got in from work, but.. things have been coming out well, at least to me.  Mind you, I’ve been baking cookies for years, but… it’s been fun so far, making dinner.  It’s eating into my time for working on the drag bike, though, haha.

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Speaking of the drag bike, man, last week was hell.  I wanted to get the near rear tire on, but I have not machined the shock mounts yet, and thus, have not had the new swing arm welded up yet.  So, I decided to use the old swing arm with the new tire.  Turns out, I could not make the rear brake work, so I machined up a ‘rear brake delete’ spacer.  This all counted on Rocky Mountain ATV shipping me a front sprocket I could modify into an offset sprocket in time for racing, and of all the times I did not get it next day… ugh.  But I had an idea… the rear tire on my V-Strom was toast, and I had heard a 150 would fit the stock GS rim, so… I swapped it over on Saturday.  Of course, the original had a tube in it, and I got the ‘new’ tire on before I forgot I did not have a valve stem.  Got a valve stem, but… wrong side.  Tube went back in.  But I managed to poke a hole in it when I put it in, so… back to the parts store.  Finally got it all together around 7pm on Saturday, and I still had bolting the rest of the bike together plus tuning the engine… ugh.  ‘Luckily’, the drags were rained out on Sunday, so I got a week reprieve.  Let’s hope that I manage to get everything done this time around.

Brian got my tank painted, it looks like a million bucks, so I’m excited about that.  Not a bad investment of $27 of paint.

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Whew.  Well, that’s the update here.  Good times, good times…